Jen- Hi, he is doing better, and then worse, and then better again. We will just have to see how it goes I guess. Today instead of math we read a dog training guide and he worked with Nimby on training. He is very serious about this. He is going to train her in basic commands and then teach her to be a Frisbee dog. We will see how that goes but I will settle for her calming down and being a civilized part of our family. It is hard to teach him how to teach her because he is almost as spastic as she is. I am hoping this will help his focus and calm as well.

When I asked him if we was going to do his Funnix like he told me he would he said "I don't want to." I told him "that's sad, I guess it is your choice but remember your actions have consequences. Try not to worry about it." Well he asked a few times what the consequences might be but I just told him not to worry about it. After lunch he decided to go ahead and do the Funnix like he had agreed to yesterday, because "I want you to be able to trust me mommy." I plan to let the boys make their first solo trip to the park today and I was going to have to make him stay home if he didn't do it so I'm glad he decided to. The park is just across from our house and I am going to work in the garage and put up Halloween decorations while they are there so I will be able to see them the whole time. It is something they have been wanting to do for a while. Surprise rewards seem to work better with Tharen. Somehow if he knows that he is working towards something he always seems to sabotage himself and then he gets defiant about it like "I don't want your stupid ___ anyway" and starts acting worse just to prove he can. It's better to catch him when he has been more compliant or working extra hard and comment on it.

I'm shopping around on ebay and some of the other educational supply websites to see if I can find better prices but so far it seems cheaper to buy the full set on amazon even though it means getting doubles of some things (I already have some of them). By the time I buy everything separately and pay shipping to different sellers in many cases it winds up costing me way more. The only place left to look is the local teacher's tools store. They have a website but it seems like they have more or different stuff in their store. I'm torn between going and shopping there or just ordering and having it done. I'm still checking to see if I can find the full set on ebay a bit cheaper because I found the set for the 4-6 grades that way. I could just start buying pieces now and by the time I need them all I will have them but I will have spent more that way. It just will have been in smaller pieces over time. I think I may ask dh about dropping by the teacher's tools place when he gets home. We really need to clean the shed out though. *sigh This is our only week off of TKD so we want to get as much done around the house as possible.

It is certainly not organized around here. I used to have this really nice routine going and then Tharen kind of blew it up. It isn't that I like routines but I feel like I'm not getting anything done if we don't have one for at least school work and cleaning. Now I am having to try to keep Kearnan on his routine and work around Tharen. We fit in as many extra chores as we can and then "deep clean" on Thursday and Friday (used to be just Friday but that sort of blew up too). We are making it work though and that is what homeschooling is about.